​Happy day-after-Fathers-Day-in-Brazil​!

Well it was quite the week. I spent a good chunk of it traveling to go to a training in Belo Horizonte. And it was quite the experience because I cot to be with my MTC companion Elder Silfies for a few days! He is a District Leader as well serving out here in my Zone. US two work in the areas most distant from the mission house. So basically we spent 3 days sitting. I sat in a lot of buses and taxis and even an airplane this week! I will send pictures.

The other good thing is that the Lord really blessed our area even though we didn't have a lot of working days. Erica has been progressing super well. We started teaching her on the 14 of July, and in just one month she has read all the way to Alma in the Book of Mormon, almost all of the Pearl of Great Price, and until Section 50 of D&C. She is also pretty deep into Jesus the Christ. She is an attorney and I'm very jealous of the speed she can read things. She told us this week that she has decided to be baptized! And she really loved the meetings yesterday at church. The Lord truly prepared her to receive the gospel and it has been so amazing to see her progress! She chose her brother to baptize her, who was baptized almost a year ago.

It's nice to hear that the fads are the same in Brazil as the US. Everyone here is playing Pokemon Go on the street and everyone is talking about the Olympics haha! Everyone is pretty sad that Michael Phelps has more gold medals than the whole country of Brazil.

Also the Branch here is doing well. We have been able to maintain an attendance of around 100 for the past few weeks. We just need to push a little farther in order to become a ward and build a chapel here! We have to help some more men receive the Melchezidek Preisthood as well. Honorato should receive the higher priesthood in October along with some other men, which will help. I know the Lord will help us to grow here.

It's also getting quite hot here as we enter into the summer in Brazil. Janaúba is the northernmost area in the mission, and therefore also the hottest. Looks like I will have to start using sun block again.

I love you guys! Have a great week!!

Elder Searle

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Cat with strange markings

On a plane headed to training with Elder Silfies

Elder Silfies and Elder Searle

All the leaders at the training in Belo Horizonte

Elder Carvalho is my new companion! He is from São Paulo and is 20 years old! He, his sister, and his mom were all baptized when he was 8 years old. He is a great missionary and it will be good to be working with him here in Janaúba.

Something really miraculous happened this week! Our branch presidente received 9 addresses of people who were members, but had accidentally been taken out of the system of the church for some reason. We went with a brother from the ward to all the addresses and everyone had either moved or passed away, minus the last address, where we found an amazing family. The dad was baptized when he was 12 and fell away from the church shortly afterwards, but was super interested in learning about the church when we visited him! His name is Vanderlei. The cool part is that we have no idea how in the world the church has that address since they moved a long time after falling away from the church and never had contact with anyone since. He has a wife and a four your old child now. We are teaching his family, his brother, and his parents. They will be coming to church this week and I'm really excited to be working with them!!

Everyone here is watching the olympics. The strange thing about Brasil is that you can go to the worst looking house in the city, but you can be sure that the family that lives there has a flat screen TV and loves to watch brasil competing. The olympics have at least been a good conversation starter for us though. 

Other than that, most of this week is going to be consumed with traveling since I will be going to a district leader training in Belo Horizonte. I will go to Montes Claros Wednesday night and catch a flight Thursday morning. I'm excited!

It's amazing to be serving a mission. I get to see the hand of the Lord in my life every day and I know that He is guiding my life. 

I love you guys! Thank you for all the support.

Elder Searle

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Old District Leaders

New District Leaders

Lunch

Well yesterday we had transfers and our district is going to change quite a bit! Elder Soares got transfered and my new companion will be Elder Carvalho!! I know him from my last transfer in Divinópolis when he was serving in the other ward there. He is a great missionary and I'm excited to be his companion!! Also, Elder Malaquias is leaving and Elder Bishop will take his place. I don't know him, but he is american. They will get here tomorrow. ​My first transfer in Janaúba was a great experience for me and it will be good to stay here. I'm learning a lot about leadership and love. It's a little bit different now because I have to worry about more missionaries than just myself. But it's good.

Other than that, this week was good! A member gave us a reference and because of that reference we found what we like to call the "Narnia" of Janaúba. I'm pretty sure no other missionary has gone there before, because no one has heard about the church nor goes to any church. And it's only like 10 min away from the chapel! We have been teaching a lot of people on a single street there where it's basically one big family. The bad part is that no one is legally married there. But the good part is that there are a lot of young, single people that are 18/19/20 years old who are really enjoying the lessons and the Book of Mormon. We were able to bring lots of people to church from that street and they all loved it! We will be working with them during this week as well.

Yesterday we were able to have a really good sacrament meeting! For the second time since I've got here there was an attendance of more than 100 people!! So that was good. We are really trying to make our goal of having 120 in sacrament meeting, which has never yet happened in the history of this branch. I think it will be possible especially as we find even more people this week!

I'm not sure how to feel about the fact that half of my mission is over. It feels pretty weird not to be one of the newer missionaries anymore. I don't think I would change a thing about my mission thus far and I'm very grateful to be a missionary!

I love you guys! Have a wonderful week!!

Elder Searle

(I forgot my pedometer at home and forgot to add up my steps, sorry!)

Elder Searle and Honorato at church

Farm people blasting music

Well this week was full of adventures! It was a really fun week for me and I am happy that the Lord is blessing us so much here.

I was able to do my second baptismal interview this week for a woman named Luciene! It was a good experience for me and I learned a lot. She has a strong testimony and as really made some changes in her life in order to be baptized. At the end of the interview she asked me to be the one to baptize her. She was baptized on Saturday along with Honorao, which was definitely the highlight of this week!

Honorato is an English teacher that we have been teaching for the past 4 weeks. We found him on a Saturday night at the house of an ex-investigator. I invited him to come to church, he accepted, and we walked with him the next day from his house to the church. He was pretty much elect because he is super willing to do anything God asks him to do and he didn't even drink coffee when we found him. He is married and has two sons, one of which is a chemical engineer! His wife is really catholic, but she actually started participating in the message when we visited them yesterday! Honorato has a few old cars and some fruit trees. He had me climb a small tree this week and pick a fruit named pinha. I put on his safari hat to pick it. Pinha basically has the taste of a sweet avocado.

Anyways, that baptism meeting was awesome because we finally got the baptismal font to fill up completely and there was a really strong spirit in the meeting. I taught my district to sing "I am a Child of God" in English, which we sang to Honorato. Daniel, a recent convert of 8 months, baptized Honorato. And it was his first time baptizing anyone! Daniel visited Honorato with us quite a bit while he prepared for baptism and it was cool to see them become great friends!

Other than that, we were able to find quite a few new investigators this week. Unfortunately I don't see a ton o potential in most of them because they all bailed on us with coming to church. But this week we will find better investigators and help those who need a little more help.

A lot of people are starting to get allergies here as well, including me. Janaúba is a very dusty city and I'm getting congested a lot. Thankfully Sister Fernandes helped me find some good medicine that's helping.

I think that's about it for this week. I love you guys! I feel my love for God's children growing as I work as a missionary. I know that I'm a child of God and that He loves me enough to bless me with everything I need. I know that the Savior lives and that He atoned for my sins. I love His gospel and the chance it gives me to start over again.

Have a great week!

Elder Searle

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Pinha

Elder Searle and Daniel

Luciene and Honorato's Baptism

Honorato and Daniel

Elder Searle, Daniel and Honorato

Good morning!

This week we traveled once again to Montes Claros to do interviews with President Fernandes. He also took us all out to lunch at a bbq place! I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Jaime was baptized Friday night! We have been working with him since my first week here and it was really great to see him ready and excited to be baptized! His sister, Nane, has been a member for 4 years. His mom has been finally letting him come to church with Nane and he has had a strong desire to be baptized ever since. We had to teach him for a while because he learns a little slower than most people. But he is also super smart in other aspects. For example, he almost has the sacramental prayers memorized and will soon be able to bless the sacrament!

It was also cool to see the Daniels preparing and passing the sacrament this week! This branch is really good and helping new members have a responsibility.

English Class was also really good. We are finding quite a few people from it and the members really like it too! I hope by the end of the course they will have learned quite a bit.

We are working quite a bit with Honorato! He is an awesome guy. This week he came to church for the third time and he is becoming more and more accepting. He already lives the commandments and has a strong desire to follow Christ. He is also really funny! He has a mustache. I will send a picture of us.

Well we have to get going so I will have to cut this one short. I love you guys! I hope this week is really good for everyone!!

Elder Searle​

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Honorato and Izael

​Jaime's baptism

​Jaime's baptism

Happy 7/11! (or 11/7 as the Brazilians would say)

This week was extraordinarily great. Wow a whole lot happened. I think the first cool thing that happened is that I started the English Course! 20 people showed up, 6 of which were non-members. One of our investigators named Honorato is an English teacher and I will be going to talk to his students in his class! The fist class went really well. We learned the verbs eat and drink and a bunch of words! We challenged everyone to bring at least one more friend for this week and have been advertising the class still so I hope this week's attendance is even better!

Wednesday we went to Montes Claros and did exchanges with our Zone Leaders! It was super awesome because I was able to see Karen who was baptized with me and Elder Vieira! She had her 18th birthday this week and told me she is preparing to serve a mission next year!!! It looks like she fell away from the church during a month shortly after I left Montes Claros but then came back and is doing really well now! I didn't see Helberth, but hopefully the next time we are in Montes Claros I will get to see him. 

On Thursday night Eliane had her baptismal interview and passed! I also did my first interview with a young man! He was really awesome and has a big testimony. Unfortunately he drank coffee on the day of the interview so we had to postpone his baptism. I will probably interview him again at the end of this week! Eliane's baptism was super spiritual! Elder Soares baptized her and I confirmed her. Her husband, Farley, should be baptized too by the end of this month. He has some things he is still working with but we are helping him out! They have two little boys named Kaio and Gustavo.

Also I just got notified that Elivando was able to baptize his son Luis Otávio in Divinópolis!!! That makes me so happy. I am grateful the missionaries there are taking good care of my old area.

The Lord is truly blessing us here. I am so grateful to be here doing this work. I know that this is the gospel of Christ and that He is guiding me on this journey. I love the Lord and His endless mercy towards me and my weaknesses. Thanks for all the support and prayers guys!! Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Searle

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​Look what I found in Janaúba!

District Meeting. 

District meeting - we all wore blue ties!

​Eliane's baptism!

​Eliane's baptism!

 ​Elivando baptizing Luis Otávio!

Feliz Dia de Independência!

It has been quite a week here in Janaúba. On Saturday the two Daniels were baptized!!! It was really awesome. They are both such cool kids. One of them has a brother named Cosme who is a return missionary. He performed the baptisms. The other Daniel is the first Daniel's best friend. He is also related to them in some way and is part of a part-member family. We started teaching him on my very first day here. They both accepted the gospel really well and one of them even had a really miraculous answer from God in the form of a dream. After reading the Book of Mormon for the first time he drempt that someone called him on the phone and explained to him that the book was true!

The baptismal font is pretty cool here. I will send a picture. It's kind of like a small pool. We did the baptism meeting outside and we missionaries played a special musical number for them. My companion plays the guitar and he played as we sang "I am a Child of God."

We have been teaching this married couple ever since I got here. Their names are Farley and Eliane. They have been investigating the church for a few months now and this week we were able to commit them to baptism! They are a really special family and have two little boys. Farley has a lot of opposition from his family who doesn't want him to follow any church that isn't catholic. Farley is running for public office so it was complicated to find time to teach him this week, but it all worked out. It was really good to teach them this week and hopefully they will be able to take the next step towards baptism soon! We were also blessed with many other new investigators this week. It was a good week.

Elder Soares is a really good companion. He is obedient and a hard worker. He teaches really well too. I'm still getting used to being a District Leader, but so far I have noticed that it basically means I have less time in the morning and at night because I need to check in with my missionaries and the Zone Leaders all the time. But it has been good thus far. I will hopefully be doing my first baptismal interview this week for an investigator that the other Elders are teaching! It's also nice because the Elders in my house respect me and aren't disobedient. And they are really funny as well!

So a little more about the city. It is hot here. Not super hot right now, since July is the least hot month of the year, but I definitely won't be using long sleeve shirts here ever. The people here are great! Especially the members. They all really want a chapel so they are working to improve the attendance at sacrament meeting. Just in the first 6 months of the year the branch has gone from 50 to 90 people attending! Most of that has been from reactivating though because there were only 5 baptisms in the first half of the year. The Branch President is really good here and is making a big difference. Our Branch Mission Leader is great! He isn't afraid to ask a lot of the branch or to follow what our Mission President is telling us to do.

Tomorrow I will begin an English Class at the church. We made invites last week and have been giving them to everyone. I believe we will have a good turn out. To take an English Course here it costs a lot and a lot of people were interested in coming because it's free and I am a native English speaker. It will be fun to start teaching English again.

Have a great week everyone! Love you guys.

Elder Searle

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After the interviews

Before the Confirmations

The Baptismal Font

The District

The Group

The Two Daniels